Angel Food Cake

For one of my coworker's birthday this year, I decided to make an angel food cake. I reeeeally wanted to make one.

In hindsight, I hardly make angel food, because I've never really liked it. Give me chocolate anything any day.

Did you know it takes nine egg whites to make it from scratch? Nine egg whites, some sugar and flour to make a bowl full of pretty white fluff.


Getting these out of the pan seems to be a little tricky. By the way, covering up a mess with sticky vanilla glaze doesn't make it less of a mess. I felt bad taking it in, because the cakes at the store are all smooth and lovely looking.


No one at work seemed to mind.

You might ask, "but what do you do with the nine egg yolks?" Silly question.

Gratuitous creme brulee shot!!

Pumpkin Cake

Splenda's website has a wealth of healthy recipes. And, I'm kind of a Splenda fan. Probably only because it dissolves fast in my coffee, and doesn't make nasty coffee-sugar sludge at the bottom.

Here's what you do with an extra can of pumpkin, aging walnuts, and two giant bags of Splenda: pumpkin cake.



It's really more of a pie.


I did use some regular sugar, but here's an important lesson: baked goods made with Splenda will not rise. Whatever sugar does, Splenda (regular, not the type especially for baking) does not.

Although, I made a loaf of my failproof blueberry quick oat bread using 1/4 sugar and the rest Splenda, and it came out perfect. But that's why it's failproof.

Donuts

Cooking fancy dishes is fun, but sometimes cooking with a neat trick is even more fun. Did you know you can make donuts out of pre-made biscuits?


I wouldn't recommend it.

1. Frying is a pain. No matter what. You can see some of those little guys are burned, and that's because I hate frying.
2. Pre-made biscuit dough sometimes has these enormous salt crystals in them. For whatever reason, that grosses me out a little.
   
3. Those little holes? They don't stand a chance. (I won't judge.)
4. You could easily eat a whole can of biscuits, which is about 1,200 calories not including any glaze you might want to add. Again, I won't judge, but just think about that a minute.
   

Just walk yourself down to 7-11 and pay the $2 for coffee & donut tomorrow, OK?

Easter Eggs

This is a cute idea to make candy Easter eggs. They were pretty tricky to make, and I wish the instructions were a little more detailed. For instance, I've since learned that if you want smooth, shiny chocolate coating, you need to temper the chocolate.

I made a huge batch for my parents for Easter. Let's just say ... they had to get out of the house.


These are a reasonable approximation of Cadbury eggs, my super favorite candy of all time. In fact, I have a couple of boxes from last year saved in the freezer. You know, in case of emergency.

From what I heard, these didn't last long at my parents' house either.

Garlicky Baked Shrimp

If you like garlic, and you like shrimp, then you should certainly try this recipe out.


That yellow mush is cornmeal. I like it a lot more than mashed potatoes, but those are good too.

I had a fail and bought tail-on shrimp. What a pain. The worst part is I keep failing over and over again ... I think someone is putting the wrong bag in the tail-off boxes at Costco. 'Cause this is getting ridiculous.